I feel bad, as now I am officially bad at 'sucking it up'. When I suck something up, it usually comes back as a resentment. And strangely, I can't switch caring on and off. If I care, I care. I'm distractable, but... Anyway, I guess people have different emotional styles, and people of that prized disposition may or may not be rare in the population at large.

Ok, I woke up in the middle of the night, and as usual, CA commenters need to be ashamed of themselves. A man is shot, and what do they do? They blame the area of town, 'thugs'[which apparently is anyone who likes gangsta rap. Dang! I just met with 15 'thugs' today! Ok, they were little children who were learning about science, but LOCK THEM UP! SCHOOLS DON'T NEED FUNDING NO WAYS!], and that we're not spending enough money jailing people. And of course, there's the good ol' folks just don't make enough effort. This man died tragically, and what do we hear? Folks running to get an opportunity to shit on neighborhoods they don't like, styles of music they don't like,etc. I don't see people shitting on single moms, which is a shocker, but maybe I missed something.

Eh, I get the feeling that employers will go and take the free work of the intern, but when it's time for hiring, those kids will be thrown in the trash. And of course, after they've worked for free! Ok, actually, with university fees, this counts as paying to have a job. Whoopie! You guys know people can work for free now, don't you? Or maybe they are out of touch with corporate culture nowadays. Take people, chew them up, and toss them out in the cold.

Woman suffers hard life, domestic abuse, is slammed for bothering 'nice white boys'. Also, poorly formed views of mental illness used to slam woman, causing annoyance for everyone who has even thought about mental illness for more than 2 seconds.

Adorable children wear clothing that is practical and age appropiate. Tabloids are shocked, demanding that small children wear high heels, an explosion of pink and bows, and fake eyelashes as soon as possible!

I was reading Donald Miller's A Mllion Miles in a Thousand Years and maybe I'm just a tool of an evil force that wants you to live boring and meaningless stories, but the fact that when he decided to live a better story, he decided to go and hike a trail in Peru threw me right off. I was feeling slightly bad because I am the sort of person who would choose to be in a story in which there are a lot of naps and any travel is leavened with many stops to eat in delicious restaurants, but then I read The Fantasy of Thin and thought maybe that Miller was just selling a different fantasy.

I think a lot of us daydream that if we just did something, whether it's decide to live a story or become thin or whatever, we'd find that our essential selves would want to do the sort of exciting things that others talk about, but I wonder if that's really true. To be a good story, do we really need to kayak in a river and then stay at the house of mysterious rich, white people? Or can our lives be a good story without the world spanning, life changing arcs that Miller wants from a story?

Yes, it's very exciting in a story for it to be raining blood as our heroes charge the bad guys, but in real life, we take pains for that to happen as little as possible, for obvious reasons. And having two or three passionate love affairs at the same time sounds great, but it probably is really exhausting instead.

I also thought that Miller's screenwriters, well, they were too focused on just one model of film making. Sure, there's a model where everything has to come out all right at the end, and you waste half the movie watching the hero doing boring things that are supposed to endear us to the hero[like some random heterosexual coupling they throw in for no reason], but there are many other ways to make a movie, and so there are many other ways to make a life.

Instead of you are beautiful, I'll leave 'you are smart', 'you are worthy', 'you are loved', 'you are valuable'

Eh, I don't like this article. There's something there...where female violence is punished, but male violence? it's just false accusations.

In cheerier news, this reminded me of a lady complaining that babysitters wanted $7 an hour! an hour! as if it was shocking, and I thought really? gas is 3 bucks per gallon. With $7, the babysitter could buy one happy meal or 7 candy bars. Maybe,maybe they could get one manga book. If they were lucky. It also reminds me of people saying we pay $7.50 an hour to chop pigweed out of the cotton fields...HEY, WHY ISN'T ANYONE SIGNING UP?!

I learned through twitter that people are working hard on being against people just taking on people's identities and struggles for shits and giggles. Good work people who are actually doing things!

The system broke, because we didn't think of what would happen when the bottom fell out. In those heady days of the 90s, we threw around words like personal responsibility, and thought the economy would always provide jobs. Our judgments and haughty misjudgments clouded our thoughts, and we couldn't see the people who needed our help. We only saw their imperfections, our judgments of what we would have done. In our imaginations, we'd never do something as crazy as watching tv or having a cell phone so when we were stranded in the cold between our two, three jobs we could call somebody. We imagined that it was like that time in college, when we worked two jobs, as we brag to everyone. We didn't say that we knew it was temporary, and a bright horizon awaited us just beyond.

I don't know who this we is. I want to take some of the blame on myself. And I think others also didn't see the bad times coming. We thought that somehow by magic, jobs would be there if only someone wished hard enough. I don't know what I mean, but all I can think of is that we have failed.

Margaret Cho, I love you! I identify so much with being the one who isn't seen, the one who is invisible until it's time to dump on someone. It hurts. I want to protect the children from this.

This post comparing 19th century cleanliness obsession with 21st century thinness obsession is a thing of beauty.

I've always hated Valentine's Day. I never could articulate it clearly- I always felt a sort of nah nah nah, look at what I get and you don't! holiday. Of course, you're supposed to feel bad about feeling bad. Others are happy, you should be happy too, they say. But I can't describe what I mean. Words fail me. All I know is that some 'happiness' makes me feel small and diminished, and makes many other people feel bad and alone, and that other happiness makes the world seem larger and expanded by its scope. It makes me feel glad to orbit around the same star as those people who are encircled by that love.

I feel that even if I wasn't watching, even if all displays of romance vanished from the earth, their love would still be as strong. It's not "look at me!" it just is.

Of course, it's obvious that we could pretty much house most of the homeless. Housing stock stands empty right now here in Memphis, while we don't even have a free shelter for the homeless to stay the NIGHT in. People can build schools out of old office buildings, why not homes out of well...houses?



I'm against a school police force as well. Why criminalize our children? Why spend sorely needed money repressing kids in a model that would probably just make things worse?

But what will they do when the big seed companies, the belligerent poor, and the socialist technocrat state shoot their zucchini crop from their black helicopters that Obama has rented from the One World Government?

This sort of thing is why I'm so suspicious of the so called 'power' of female sexual display. The power requires someone else to give it to you. This woman is not so much to blame for buying into the hype. For years, we've been told oh, women are so powerful; they can make a man do anything by shaking their ass!

But your ass is always too big, too small, too old, too exposed, too covered. Too dark, too light, too high, too low. You shake it too much, no, you shake it too little. When someone talks about how crazy this society makes her, how after being told and told that sexual and appearance value IS her value as a woman, it's all get therapy!

Now, that's just degrading the idea of therapy, and I'm sick of it. Therapists treat mental illnesses, and also help people adjust to life's traumas. It's a noble profession and I don't like it being used as a cheap insult. It seeks to say that the person didn't just say something you disagree with, but is deviant in a bone deep way.

I mean, "I feel invisible because of the hurtful comments of some dick musician, and it reminds me of feeling invisible in public" "You should get therapy for that". What's with that? "I hope you get the help you need for feeling bad because some asshole put you down!" Well, that's really condescending! And thanks for making mental health care more stigmatized.

When people really get to the point where their life situations have them about to break, when their natural resilience and support networks are not enough to support them, and they may need to seek guidance from a helper, they may shy away because they remember you being a wafflesnatcher.

I think that mental health is broad. You can be vulnerable, hurt in places, and still not be 'crazy' or 'bad'. I think a lot of us are more lonely than we have to be because we're constrained to having an image of no weakness, no fear, nothing but goodness and strength. If only somehow, we could share ourselves with each other without fear.

Now the truth is that I was not lusting after John Mayer's pasty sexist ass cock. But still, I don't want to know that I can't be me and be loved at the same time in this society. Now, my bones know it. My heart knows it. But like John Mayer's disembodied and creepy ass dick, my brain doesn't want to follow through.

This is the best comment about that yet.

Now that's entitlement! People complain about people feeling entitled to food or medicine, but feeling entitled to sexual gratification using other's bodies and our money? A OK!

Also, my favorite part of this article is how the writer describes how without taxes this town wouldn't even exist.

I love you kameelah! By which I mean, your blog is awesome!

Ah. pandagon, is there a subject you can't wank on?

I like how this post has a sensible discussion about why people choose the foods they do. [hint: it's not because they are saying HAHAHAHAHA! I WILL HAVE A FAT ASS AND RUIN AMERICA!!!]

Breaking the gender binary is not easy to do.

The pain and loss of birthmothers from adoptions that were purported to be open, but really were only open on the conditions that the adoptive parents would allow.

Precious contributes to stigma, writers say. Note the excellent Akeelah and the Bee didn't get any awards.

As you all know, I'm a prude. So I was going to complain that for god's sake, your child does not need lingerie. They can wear days of the week panties like generations before. But sadly, the comments are terrible, full of OMG, SHE'S A HOE! SHE'LL GET RAPED! even though its just clothing that is really ugly and inappropriate. No matter how butt ugly, stupid looking and freedom restricting the clothing young girls wear is, it has nothing to do with their sexual morality and anyway, if you rape a ten year old, it's your own fault, no matter whether she was wearing jeans and a t shirt or fishnet stockings and a skirt that is up to there.

So yes, that line of clothing is butt ugly, and is a sad result of how we're telling little girls that their worth is in how 'hot' they look. But it doesn't make the girls hoes, sluts, or whatever. It's just hideous clothing.

I'm sort of worried. I think why are they publishing the full name of a girl who has been assaulted by the police? I'm worried people will drag her name through the mud because of this, even though it was the police man who did something wrong.

Henrietta Lacks is a name I didn't know. Up until 5 minutes ago, I thought it was Lax. Due to shockingly unethical behavior, her cells are still living and producing cures. There's a lot of stuff in this story from the anxiety of the family that they'll just be used and thrown away to the question of who really owns your cells. It sucks that it's through someone else and not people telling their own story, but then again, it's not like her family could really afford to max out their credit cards on a story that they didn't even know others would listen to...and plus, it would be hard to get an agent, etc.

Look at this amazing statement from Adoptees of Color. It tells us that we can't just spirit children away from everything they've known, and say it's alright. We can't just say 'they're orphans' without even thinking of the possibility they might have relatives or communities they already live in!

Also, strange Detroiters are freezing a house solid for reasons I don't understand. Art? protest?

and BTW: Disability is our lives, not your analogy!

Privledge is the idea that you can just show up with good intentions and not even think your cunning plan through. Of course the Haitian government doesn't want you to just abscond with children with no evidence of whether you're going to sell them to the highest bidder or whether you've gotten the approval of any family members the children might have had... Also, do the kids think they are just going away for a while and can come back or do they know that they might never see any of their family members ever again?